Stupidity and human incompetence are the great evils, not ambition and glory.

The thought of being President frightens me and I do not think I want the job.

I had this dream, and I really wanted to be a star. And I was almost a monster in the way that I was really fearless with my ambitions.

I still wanna rap better than everybody else, and I wanna say important things.

The discipline of the written word punishes both stupidity and dishonesty.

These young guys are playing checkers. I’m out there playing chess.

I have no interest in Shakespeare and all that British nonsense… I just wanted to get famous and all the rest is hogwash.

When you are aspiring to the highest place, it is honorable to reach the second or even the third rank.

For a true writer, each book should be a new beginning where he tries again for something that is beyond attainment. He should always try for something that has never been done or that others have tried and failed. Then sometimes, with great luck, he will succeed.

Natural ability without education has more often raised a man to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.

If boyhood and youth are but vanity, must it not be our ambition to become men?

I’ve always wanted to live above my means because it inspired me to work harder.

When small men attempt great enterprises, they always end by reducing them to the level of their mediocrity.

At the age of 6, a teacher full of ambitions, who taught in the small public school of Biran, convinced my family that I should travel to Santiago de Cuba to accompany my older sister who would enter a highly prestigious convent school. Including me was a skill of that very teacher from the little school in Biran.

The biggest crime in England is to rise above your station. It’s fine to be a pop star. ‚Oh, it’s great, lots of fun, aren’t they sweet, these pop stars! But to think you have anything to say about how the world should work? What arrogance!‘

Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.

If the relationship of father to son could really be reduced to biology, the whole earth would blaze with the glory of fathers and sons.

Pride is still aiming at the best houses: Men would be angels, angels would be gods. Aspiring to be gods, if angels fell; aspiring to be angels men rebel.

I can’t deny that the thought of being governor, the thought of being president, is alluring. And beyond that, it would be an opportunity to make a real impact on people’s lives on a global scale. But there are a lot of other things I want to do first.

If you can build a business up big enough, it’s respectable.

Everybody that I was in school with had an uncle or father in the law, and I started to realize that I was going to end up writing briefs for about ten years for these fellows who I thought I was smarter than. And I was kind of losing my feeling for that.

Some slaves are scoured to their work by whips, others by their restlessness and ambition.

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.

Some people want to win races. Other people want to be President of the United States.

Get place and wealth, if possible with grace; if not, by any means get wealth and place.

The greater the difficulty, the greater the glory.

As soon as I accomplish one goal, I replace it with another one. I try not to get too far ahead of myself. I just say to myself, ‚All right, well, I’d like to headline a tour,‘ and then when I get there, we’ll see what my next goal is.

My goals are so high that I don’t have time to relax in any way, shape or form.

The wish to acquire more is admittedly a very natural and common thing; and when men succeed in this they are always praised rather than condemned. But when they lack the ability to do so and yet want to acquire more at all costs, they deserve condemnation for their mistakes.

I’m not going to get somewhere and say, ‚OK, I’m done.‘ Success is never final; I’ll just keep on going. The same way as failure never being fatal. Just keep going. I’m going to the stars and then past them.

Let us recollect that peace or war will not always be left to our option; that however moderate or unambitious we may be, we cannot count upon the moderation, or hope to extinguish the ambition of others.

Aim for the sky and you’ll reach the ceiling. Aim for the ceiling and you’ll stay on the floor.

A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune and favour cannot satisfy him.

Success comes to those who have an entire mountain of gold that they continually mine, not those who find one nugget and try to live on it for fifty years.

Often, in the real world, it’s not the smart that get ahead but the bold.

Before finding music, I didn’t have too many aspirations. I wanted to hang out, make a little money from whatever I had to do.

To forget one’s purpose is the commonest form of stupidity.

He that humbleth himself wishes to be exalted.

Every man, and for stronger reasons, every artist, wants to be recognized. So do I.

As he was valiant, I honour him. But as he was ambitious, I slew him.

When you’re around me and really see that all I do is live and breathe for my work, it’s not strange, it’s just Gaga.

However my parents – both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing quirk that would never pay a mortgage or secure a pension.

A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself; and a mean man, by one lower than himself. The one produces aspiration; the other ambition, which is the way in which a vulgar man aspires.

I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.

Basically you have to suppress your own ambitions in order to be who you need to be.

Our ambition should be to rule ourselves, the true kingdom for each one of us; and true progress is to know more, and be more, and to do more.

When things get so absurd and so stupid and so ridiculous that you just can’t bear it, you cannot help but turn everything into a joke.

To be clever enough to get all that money, one must be stupid enough to want it.

Stupidity has a knack of getting its way.

I had nothing growing up, but I always wanted to be ‚sexy,‘ even before I knew what the word was.

As a child, when asked what I would be, I usually said I was going to be a huntsman. A fine profession, truly!

A lot of people are focused on taking over the world or doing the biggest thing and getting the most users. I think part of making a difference and doing something cool is focusing intensely.

Ambition never is in a greater hurry than I; it merely keeps pace with circumstances and with my general way of thinking.

Ours is one continued struggle against degradation sought to be inflicted upon us by the European, who desire to degrade us to the level of the raw Kaffir, whose occupation is hunting and whose sole ambition is to collect a certain number of cattle to buy a wife with, and then pass his life in indolence and nakedness.

The average Hollywood film star’s ambition is to be admired by an American, courted by an Italian, married to an Englishman and have a French boyfriend.

I had no ambition to be a writer because the books I read were too good, my standards were too high.

I am certainly not one of those who need to be prodded. In fact, if anything, I am the prod.

A man’s worth is no greater than his ambitions.

Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education.

I believe that each of us comes from the Creator trailing wisps of glory.

A belief in hell and the knowledge that every ambition is doomed to frustration at the hands of a skeleton have never prevented the majority of human beings from behaving as though death were no more than an unfounded rumor.